14/12/2023
HOPENISM: ACCENTUATING THE SERVANT-LEADERSHIP PARADIGM OF GOVERNANCE IN IMO STATE;
AN ALLEGORY OF THE NEO-CLASSICAL DOCTRINE OF DEFIANT POSITIVISM, PROACTIVE VISIONARY COURAGE AND PROGRESSIVISM:
By Stanford Arinze Nwokedi
Letters have been exhausted in expounding the practicable parameters for the spirited philosophical doggedness and positive values conversions from horrible negativities which have been exemplified in the Hope Uzodimma's era in Imo State Government (Douglas) House. So much has happened in this most challenging period of Imo evolution. Yes, these happenstances and the State Government's instant counter/remedial actions have continued to confound the most wizardly of our worldly acclaimed intellectuals. Imo State is now a Case Study in the doggedness of the envisioned mind; a cynosure of all eyes and a reference point in courageous and innovative governance.
Permit me to conceptualize the political engineering of such troubled State as Hopen*sm. Perhaps, let this be my explicit invitation for the accentuation of the merits in the new political paradigm.
Starting from 15th January, 2020 when Gov Hope Uzodimma was sworn in as the duly elected Governor and stretching till 2023 and still going on, so much has happened and much more lie in waiting going into the Renewed Hope term.
In fact, this is a deliberate design to appropriate scholarly virtues and measures so as to understudy the dexterity of the Governor and his containment methodologies in the face of orchestrated challenges. That's the crux of the matter.
There have been times that our collective consciousness and sensitivity got arraigned in the court of humanity for questioning. The humane values of life and the very sanctity of human lives got interrogated because of the bastiality of man towards his fellows under the watchful glares of all. Human heads were being serially severed from the body frames - the cutting processes videoed and brazenly shared on social media handles; human heads were being displayed on open market tables for other yet fortunate humans to watch; human body parts were seen in local ovens at Orsu being cannibalized upon without any qualms; brethren visited mayhems on their brethren ostensibly on the quest for a brand of freedom that enslaved the people, ridiculed their self worths and limited their movements on days/weeks/months of compulsorily imposed Sit-At-Home saga, off the stables of non-State actors; innocent people who, out of hunger and in the quest to fend for themselves and their families, disobeyed the "orders" paid with their lives, vehicles, goods and properties; starvation and economic damnation have overwhelmed the society and the collateral damages increased on daily counts; etcetera.
The horrendous experiences have reduced us all before our maker - the Supreme God. Yes, God is obviously angry. Traditional rulers are being killed, kidnapped and murdered; the Priests - the acclaimed "anointed" are not spared the touches of horror. Many families have lost their breadwinners. Security operatives have become targets of men of the underworld. The effronteries of the marauders offend sensibilities and defy explanations. Anarchy. Near precipice. These have had to be our signatures for being overtly inconsiderate of the far-reaching consequences of our actions and inactions.
These were times that mirrored the extremes of the ugliest challenges that were never envisaged. We have had, in these low times, a c**ktail of vices and very wearily, a conflagration of man's devious mischievousness and subversive orchestrations targeted at the nascency of the pure civil political society like Imo State. How may it be understood that Imo State, a State originally known for her booming hospitality industry and zero entropy as per insecurity would be attacked by the demon of self-hatred brewed with unmitigated mindsets? These remain _cases classici._ and underline the ugly circumstances that brewed up the innovative countermeasures and counter-offensive sagacious governance philosophy depicted in Hopen*sm as a political servant-leadership paradigm. There have been evident pseudo-kinetic and non kinetic approaches with legendary courage, foresight and tactfulness in the resolve to stop the shenanigans of orchestrated crimes and criminalities in Imo State. The ingenuity of an African had never, for as long as Africa has been free from colonialism, been this challenged, to the extent that the Office - The Governor of Imo State - has had to be put through the most agonizing _granulite facies_ stage of metamorphism in sophistications of tact, dexterity and competent courage. Imo State has had to be going through a compelled de-socialization and re-socialization with unavoidable extreme challenges of adaptations in high political awareness and philosophy, security consciousness and responsible citizenship. These have been experiential and progressive in inculcation. It still beats most scholars how Gov Hope Uzodimma has been able to withstand the obviously alien multifaceted and rather draconian orchestrations in Imo State under his watch, without giving way and or succumbing to the thick blackmails and all the vagaries of the intractable mounds of problems from day to day, week to week and year to year.
Those problems are now no more or they are in their ebbing lows of extinction. The Egyptians of yesterday are seen no more or their faint outlooks are disappearing like effervescent vapour of spirits.. This underscores the mysteries of Hopen*sm that need illumination and scholarship. The nay-sayers, the conformists, the conservatives, the progressives, the free-minders, the different segments and the entire polity of Imo that ceased to be a unit, etc have all reunited in the fervency of Hopen*sm and a new aura of social order, political serenity, spiritual reawakening and a wholesome feeling of the victory of good over evil pervades the land of Imo State - the heartland of Eastern Region.
How did Governor Hope Uzodimma navigate the ship of a troubled State he captained and still captains at those times of extreme societal decadence and now, respectively, to survive the existential scares? How did the Governor navigate the intricacies of the complex wirings of the obvious conspiracies to make the State ungovernable, as the Opposition threatened after losing power on 14th January, 2020? I think the Governor has prevailed over the evil machinations of the orchestrators. He has become the albatross to the forces of retrogression and anarchy. Here now, he is an enigma whose imprints on the sands of time shall remain indelible and evergreen.
How did a nascent Civil Political society like Imo State adapt to the insurgency of a series of combative anti-government and pro-annihilistic rambo pseudo-criminalities of what became known as the UNKNOWN GUNMEN, the pure criminal enterprises like hostage taking (an enhanced format of kidnapping), the secession fire-powers and the petty-crime-trading that became the consequences of public negligence and delusion of sentiments? The Biafra emotionalism and the hero touting of the messianic passion played their hurtful roles in all of the saga. A society must watch what it romanticizes as a sentiment. Demons gradually grow from societal sentiments. Such demons grow and crystalize as utopias of perceptions. Nothing tastes as perceived. Not even honey.
The answers to the afore-laid questions deserve their special mentions in our Political Science Curricula. The survivalist methodologies deserve meritorious acclaim and the God-factor should deserve re-evaluation too.
I am not the best writer to research on issues of the theology of Politics. I will not try to venture into the exclusive things of the Levis. I am not an ordained Priest. As a layman, I shall remain within my realm of realism and idealism. But I crave for answers I should not consciously doubt, question or find too overtly spiritual for physical learning and understanding. There should be empiricism in the body of answers for the takeaways to impact on the society. Be these as they are, obviously and without doubts, I perceive an unseen hand of the Almightiness of God in the power theatre of Imo governance. I see an array of spiritual armoury of angels like a host, who have kept drawing the unseen presence, even of God's hands, working and intervening in mysterious ways. These mysterious hands have slowly but steadily been guiding, guarding and jealously salvaging the State, the servant-Governor, the bemused people of Imo. The threatened posterity of the entire native enclaves of our natured homesteads across many literary golgothas have been transformed to the save lands of the same territories, becoming rather poised for greater greatness rather than being backward. An emergent state of sustainable development is now the end-result instead of retrogression.
The crux of the issue is that it is within this extremely challenged era that Imo State has witnessed a tendency for governance-induced development. It is therefore significant enough that we domesticate the chain of processes, procedures and methodologies adopted by the Shared Prosperity Government under Dist Sen Hope Uzodimma (CON) and provide a scholarly framework for the replication of same in other States across Africa and perhaps beyond. Many places are today so challenged. Many States in Africa risk the prospect of similar fate in the future.
*HOPENISM* is therefore a deliberate scholarly emphasis aimed at crystalizing the seemingly surreal leadership aura in the governance annals of a nascent society faced with extreme mindset problems, political extremism of devious acclaim and the revolt of positivism that conquers the deliberate antics of the most viscous minority. A robustly progressive society can be re****ed by intrinsic retrogressive influences. This is the example in focus. If the retrogression ends up weaponizing the ignorance of the deceived segment of its population, calamity reigns therein. With this pervading aura of calamity, except there is a counter-progressive dexterity, as exemplified in the Imo governance experience within the Hope Era under review, nothing worse than precipice results in the said polity.
© Stanford Arinze Nwokedi
Senior Special Assistant To Gov Hope Uzodimma On Public Enlightenment.
Owerri, Imo State.
11th December, 2023.
